Electromagnetic shaft-wheel coupling for arbitrary distribution of shaft torque in a turbine engine
OwnerBenjamin M. Iwreyinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A gas turbine engine system includes a compressor drive shaft and a compressor. The compressor includes a number of rotors. Each rotor includes a number of blades radially extending from a rotor wheel. The rotor wheels are concentric with the compressor drive shaft and separated from the compressor drive shaft by a gap. The rotors wheels are electromagnetically coupled to the compressor drive shaft so as to rotate with or about the compressor drive shaft at variable speeds.
Claims20
A gas turbine engine system comprising:
- a turbine engine comprising:
- a compressor drive shaft;
- a compressor having a plurality of rotor wheels and a plurality of blades extending radially from each rotor wheel, each of the rotor wheels being rotatable with the compressor drive shaft and rotatable about the compressor drive shaft;
- and
- an electromagnetic coupler electromagnetically coupling the rotor wheels to the compressor drive shaft;
- and
- control circuitry to selectively vary a supply of electrical energy to the electromagnetic coupler.
The gas turbine engine system of any of the preceding claims, wherein each of the rotor wheels is concentric with the compressor drive shaft and separated from the compressor drive shaft by a gap.
A compressor for a gas turbine engine, the compressor comprising:
- a plurality of compressor stages, each stage comprising a rotor and a stator, each rotor comprising a rotor wheel and a plurality of blades extending radially from the rotor wheel;
- and
- an electromagnetic coupler disposed adjacent an inner diameter of each of the rotor wheels.
A control unit for a gas turbine engine, the gas turbine engine comprising a compressor and a compressor drive shaft, the compressor having a plurality of bladed rotor wheels concentric with the compressor drive shaft, the control unit comprising electrical circuitry and shaft torque control logic embodied in one or more non-transitory machine readable storage media, wherein the shaft torque control logic is executable by the electrical circuitry to cause an intensity of a magnetic field between the bladed rotor wheels and the compressor drive shaft to vary to generate a continuously variable torque between the compressor drive shaft and the bladed rotor wheels.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.